The third AI Summit in Paris (February 10-11th) is markedly differed from its Seoul and Bletchley Park predecessors. A successful fundraiser, the summit was an occasion for President Macron to present his strategy for a third way in AI governance, beyond American and/or Chinese leadership. While previous summits maintained a tight focus on safety and a limited participation, France positioned the event as AI’s equivalent of environmental policy’s Conference of the Parties. The summit expanded scope to include 100 countries for four days of preliminary scientific and cultural activities and a programme of side-events accommodating every stakeholder’s taste. Hosted in Paris’s iconic Grand Palais, with banners promoting “AI Science, not Science Fiction” adorning the main hall, the French Summit nonetheless sidelined the 100 scientists who had agreed in Seoul, to deliver an International AI Safety Report that summarised the scientific consensus on the risks posed by AI. The summit programme excluded follow-up from companies which had committed in Seoul to publish safety frameworks in time for Paris. The French summit downplayed “exaggerated anxieties” about AI risks and departed from the consensus-building efforts of previous summits.
We Need to Avert an AI Safety Winter | Royal United Services Institute
